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Issue link: http://wateronline.epubxp.com/i/672151
By Thomas Bernard T he security of drinking water is increasingly recognized as a major challenge for municipalities and water utilities. The safety and/or security of drinking water can be threatened by natural disasters, accidents, or malevolent attacks (Gleik, 2006). In the event of a contamination, the material can spread within the water rapidly and extensively before the problem is detected. Contaminated drinking water can induce widespread illness or death, disrupt economic life, and create mass panic. First-generation software packages and sensors are available — such as Guardian Blue from Hach Lange and Canary from the U.S. EPA — for managing drinking water safety and security and, in particular, for detecting incidents. These allow for an overall management of water security, including the systematic collection and interpretation of information by online sensors. However, this first generation of tools suffers from a range of serious shortcomings: 1. Real-time detection and alarm capabilities are insufficient or nonexisting; 2. Current limitations of propagation models make the effective situation assessment of potentially contaminated zones very difficult; 3. There exists no generic approach for the online calibration of the hydraulic and transport model; 4. Models for response, mitigation, and recovery are almost nonexistent for real-world systems at present; 5. The set of available CBRN sensors, which can be used to detect contamination threats to water drinking quality in the distribution system, is very limited. The aim of several international projects that have been recently finished or are still in progress is the development of comprehensive event detection and event management solutions for drinking water security management and mitigation against major deliberate, accidental, or natural CBRN-related contaminations. The aims and results of three projects are briefly presented herein. Project SMaRT-Online WDN Online security management and reliability toolkit for water distribution networks The main objective of the project SMaRT-Online WDN (duration: 2012 – 2105; see SMaRT Online WDN (2015)) was the development of an online security management toolkit for water distribution networks (WDN) that is based on sensor measurements of water quality as well as water quantity. The French-German cooperative research project consists of end users (BWB in Germany, CUS Strasbourg, and Veolia Eau d'Ile de France), technical and socio-economic research institutions (Fraunhofer IOSB, TZW, Irstea, ENGEES), and industrial partners on both French and German sides (Veolia, 3S Consult). In this project, the technical research work was completed with a sociological, economical, and management analysis. SMaRT-Online WDN combines applied mathematics, civil and environmental engineering, fluid mechanics research, and social science and economics in a multidisciplinary approach. The general system concept is sketched in Figure 2. The software solution relies on data treatment and assimilation from a sensor network of water quantity values (pressure, flow rate) and water quality values (e.g., chlorine residue, pH, conductivity, turbidity, and temperature). The core of the online security management toolkit consists of a grid of smart sensors in combination with an online simulation model. The boundary conditions of the network model are regularly updated by measurement data guaranteeing the compliance of the model with the observations. With this information, the online security management toolkit is able to reflect the current hydraulic state of the entire system. In addition, monitoring of water quality parameters supports the detection of biochemical contamination of the drinking water. The functionality of the SMaRT-Online WDN software modules can be summarized as follows: • Event detection and alarm generation: Enables a robust 16 wateronline.com n Water Innovations Protecting Against Doomsday Contaminants New tools are being developed for worst-case drinking water scenarios: chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN)- related contamination. Real-time detection and alarm capabilities are insufficient or nonexisting.